Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Childlike Views ❯ Pleasently Dizzy ( Chapter 1 )

“Because red is my favorite color!” She told him cheerfully. But, in her mind, the truth was whispered: `Because you can't see blood on red.'

~~~

 

Let us pretend, for a moment, that you are a child. All right? You are a child with deep, wine colored hair; in fact, it is so deep a color, many say it's black. But it isn't. You know it isn't. You have dark eyes as well, the color of a stormy ocean, bottomless and foreboding.

Now, this child- who you are pretending to be- has a secret. Naturally, she- or, rather, you- don't want anyone to know this secret.

Your family also has a secret, larger and more dangerous than your secret, and infinitely more painful.

At least, it's painful to those it affects. Fourteen is your least favorite number, because there are fourteen who this secret your family has affects. Jyuunishi is your least favorite word, because this is the source of that fourteen's pain.

Imagine, if you will, that you were the mother or father of one of the fourteen. Imagine that you had given birth to a son (or daughter, depending on your gender). And now, imagine that when you try to hold that son/daughter, he/she were to disappear, and be replaced with an animal.

Stop imagining. You are the child once more.

You often do this; try to imagine what it must be like for them, even though you never can. All of the fourteen who have been born act as though something has been taken from them; as though being unable to get close to their mothers or fathers is something to be unhappy about. You have never been able to understand this; your own mother hates you so very much.

This is another thing you haven't figured out yet, even though you have directly ordered her to tell you many times.

Even though she never listens. None of them do.

It isn't fair.

That is the one thing you can remember sobbing over and over curled up in your room while the four of the fourteen old enough to understand listen and watch from a wary distance. Wary because you are God. Wary because they, unlike the rest of the family, absolutely have to listen to you.

They offered you no comfort then, not even a pat on the back.

They are wary for another reason.

They fear you, what you could do to them. Because they know your secret.

And girls cannot embrace members of the Jyuunishi.

And so it was, you grew up, isolated and ill; lonely and with nothing to do but watch the passage of time through the large circular window in your room. None visit you; apparently you aren't a very interesting person.

But today, today is different.

Hatori, the doctor-in-training of the family, has told you that both your mother and the current doctor agree: you are well enough to go out.

Perhaps it is a by-product of sitting with nothing to do for so long, or perhaps your mysteriously frequent illnesses that no one has offered an explanation for as of yet; but moving around like this, for once not locked in your room, makes you feel dizzy.

It's a pleasant dizzy, not like when you're in bed with fever and pains; the kind of dizzy that makes you want to laugh just because you're alive.

And today, it's true.

You are alive.

 

TBC